Category: International Conflict

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia has launched the serial production of the Cheytac sniper rifle cartridge made from domestic components only, thanks to import substitution, the head of Russian arms manufacturer Lobaev Arms, Vladislav Lobaev, told Sputnik. “We have created a fully Russian cartridge for caliber 375 Cheytac rifles, and have already begun its mass production. For the first time, our…

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The South Grouping of the Russian armed forces has eliminated over 285 Ukrainian military and mercenaries, as well as 17 military vehicles and a weapons depot in the Donetsk direction over the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. “Over the past day, nine sorties were carried out in this area [near Donetsk]. Artillery of…

The U.S. military is working with allies to send more ships and aircraft to the Middle East as Iran escalates its seizures of merchant tankers, the National Security Council announced Friday.

“Today, the Department of Defense will be making a series of moves to bolster our defensive posture in the Arabian Gulf,” NSC spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

The announcement comes after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized a Panama-flagged oil tanker called Niovi on May 3, as the ship was traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. The tanker left Dubai, and moved toward a UAE port when a dozen boats from the IRGC navy forced the tanker to head into Iranian waters.

Another incident occurred April 27, when the Advantage Sweet tanker ship belonging to the Marshall Islands was also seized after colliding with an Iranian boat, which injured several crewmembers, according to Iran’s state media.

United States to provide $1.2 billion in new military aid to Ukraine, including air defenses and ammunition. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it is “only a matter of time before we can restore a sustainable and just peace for our part of Europe, for Ukraine.” Agence France-Presse journalist Arman Soldin was killed by rocket fire in eastern Ukraine where journalists…

Beijing vows to ‘fight back resolutely and forcefully’ but denies that its diplomat intimidated a politician. By Paul Eckert for RFA 2023.05.09 — China expelled a Canadian diplomat in Shanghai on Tuesday, a day after Ottawa announced it would expel a Chinese diplomat accused of trying to intimidate a Canadian politician. The tit-for-tat expulsions follow years of strained ties between…

LONDON – Britain is set to formally blacklist Russia’s mercenary force Wagner group as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia, The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Wagner mercenaries have spearheaded Russia’s months-long assault on Bakhmut in the industrial Donbas region.

After two months of building a legal case, proscription or a formal blacklisting of the group was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks, the newspaper reported citing a government source.

  LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs and will begin phasing out its local jobs app in China. In a letter today, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslanky said the decision to shutter the standalone China app, called InCareer, was because of “fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate.” While reducing some roles, LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft and has 20,000 employees,…

WASHINGTON – A Federal Reserve report warned that banks’ concerns about slower growth could lead them to make fewer loans, accelerating an economic downturn, and highlighted commercial real estate as an area of heightened risk that will draw more scrutiny from bank examiners.

The US central bank’s financial stability report released on Monday is the first since four regional lenders collapsed. The episodes prompted weeks of wild trading in bank stocks and forced regulators to take a series of extraordinary steps that included backstopping all depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

A new leak found that Iran concealed weapons within earthquake aid to Syria to target U.S. troops, The Washington Post reported. A new leak of U.S. documents that circulated on the online platform Discord and obtained by The Post appear to show that Iran hid military equipment in aid shipments to Syria after the region was hit by an earthquake…

Source: Iran Press TV Saturday, 06 May 2023 4:26 PM The United States is preparing an express weapons delivery for Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), despite Bejing’s repeated warnings to Washington against arming the self-ruled island, which China considers a part of its territory. The administration of US President Joe Biden will use the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) to expedite the arms…

UN chief Antonio Guterres addresses envoys during talks on Afghanistan in Qatar on May 2, 2023 The UN reaffirmed its “commitment to stay” in Afghanistan on Friday, in a review assessing its operations in the country in light of the Taliban banning women from working for the world body. The United Nations announced on April 4 that the Taliban had…

(Bloomberg) — Canada is assessing the consequences of potentially expelling a Chinese diplomat accused in media reports of targeting a Canadian lawmaker’s family for sanctions as political punishment. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said her department summoned China’s Canadian ambassador to Canada to discuss the matter Thursday morning. “We’re assessing the consequences that we’ll be facing in case of diplomatic expulsion,…

Ukraine — Russia attacked several Ukrainian cities with explosive drones overnight, though Ukraine said Thursday that it had managed to shoot most of them down. Russia called the attack payback for what it claims was an alleged attempt by Ukraine to attack the Kremlin in Moscow using drones on Wednesday.

The Kremlin claimed the attack was an attempt by Ukraine to assassinate President Vladimir Putin and, on Thursday morning, Russia’s government accused the U.S. of planning it.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied any Ukrainian role in an attack on the Kremlin, insisting that his country’s forces were acting only to defend Ukraine’s sovereign territory — though there has been evidence over the last week that they’re also stepping up attacks, using drones, on Russian infrastructure, both in occupied territory and across the border inside Russia.

In Huawei’s head office last month, staff gathered to celebrate the in-house development of software to replace a US system that, thanks to Washington’s export controls, the Chinese technology company was no longer able to purchase. “Three years ago, we were cut off from the old ERP [enterprise resource planning] system,” said Tao Jingwen, a Huawei board member and president…

The Chinese government has significantly increased the use of exit bans to stop people – Chinese and foreign nationals alike – from leaving the country since top leader Xi Jinping took power in 2012, according to a new report describing how a web of vague laws are being expanded for political reasons.

The report comes amid growing concern about the environment for foreign businesses in China, after the wide-ranging overhaul last week of the country’s espionage law and raids on corporate consultancies Mintz Group and Bain & Co.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post in an interview published on Tuesday that the White House did not inform him about a leak of secret US documents that grabbed attention around the world in April.

“I did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand,” Mr Zelensky was quoted as saying.

“It is unprofitable for us,” he added. “It is not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”

The materials posted online offered a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on April 12 that the Pentagon document leaks contained a mixture of true and false information about his country’s military, and downplayed its negative impact.